


i believe in you and in our hearts

by philthestone



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, and i am. okay with that, brunnhilde & brunnhilde is the real character relationship here. yep, in retrospect this fic is heavily influenced by the end of the world episode of parks, post infinity war movies .... 10 years post. phew, the other guardians are also there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 20:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: "A road trip," Thor says. "That's what the Midgardians call it.""That's a stupid name for a thing," says Brunnhilde, but she's grinning as she does.Or: nearly a decade after, Thor gets up one day and decides that they need a vacation.





	i believe in you and in our hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrimsonPetrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonPetrichor/gifts).



> as i said in the tags, i came to write this fic & after it finished i realize that it was very much modeled after the parks episode with the grand canyon. so i just am embracing that fact, u know?
> 
> dedicated to zainab bc it was mainly her doing that it got Thought Up, and its important to know this was originally called the Valkyrie Thinks About Healing And There's A Baby There Fic, but then the road trip element decided to take over and there was far less baby than anticipated. idk how i feel about that but WHAT CAN U DO. em told me this is really good and i hope it is. 
> 
> things this fic has taught me is that im pretty much incapable of writing mcu fic without involving the guardians somehow. also, im pretty much incapable of writing fic in general without involving babies somehow.
> 
> i am embracing that fact also
> 
> title is from florence and the machine & every review yall give makes my heart so full

She wonders at what point she stopped expecting the people around her to start dropping like flies.

_ Dropping like flies _ is one of Thor’s favorite human expressions, which he always uses looking like he’s delivering a particularly funny joke. Brunnhilde has not been to Midgard much or for long, but even she can’t deny that it has a sort of blunt straightforwardness to it that she really appreciates. 

So: dropping like flies.

She stopped expecting it, some time ago. She can’t quite figure when it was, only that it was ironically before half the known universe was wiped out and after she watched her King’s kingdom burn to the ground.

Brunnhilde has never been known for her impeccable judgement. 

Then again, it all seemed to work out in the end, anyway.

 

Nearly a decade after, Thor gets up one day and decides that they need a vacation.

_ Vacation _ , of course, is a bit more of a universal term, Midgardians not having lain the only claim to it. It’s raining out, and not because of him, which Brunnhilde thinks is perhaps the lynchpin upon which his grand and sudden plan is hinged. Were it not raining, they might have stayed. But it is raining, and the settlement is running more smoothly than it ever has, and so Thor decides that they need a vacation -- just the two of them.

Korg bids them farewell at the ramp of their vessel -- and it does occur to her that there is perhaps a design in the fact that it is small and-lightly gunned and painted not unlike the Grandmaster’s orgy ship which ferried them on their first adventure together -- and they go. Brunnhilde doesn’t know where they’re going; only that the rain is not Thor’s doing, and that loss has grown lighter where it drapes on the horizon, and that Korg’s goodbye is warm and genuine as it always is.

She lays back against her seat, Thor in her periphery, and looks out at the stars.

“D’you think Loki will do alright while we’re away?” he asks, presently, like one might ask about the weather. Brunnhilde stretches a bit in her seat, still looking out into the passing clusters.

“He’s been left on his own before, hasn’t he.”

“We didn’t tell him we were leaving this time,” says Thor, easy and amicable.

“Mmm.” She lays her fingers still against the arm of her pilot’s chair and relishes the feeling of not moving at all. “Worst that’ll happen is we’ll come back to a coup.”

She turns just soon enough to see him smile at the passing stars, humor running deepening furrows in the lines on his cheeks. There’s blue in the light seeping through the viewport and it catches his eyes, light like a cloudless sky.

She’s turned back into a sentimental fool but he’s young and loves it and it has been nearly ten years, after all. She remembers, again, that she expects he’ll be around forever. To keep his brother in check and gently support and lead their flourishing representative democracy.

It’s foolish, but she says,

“Don’t worry, Majesty, I’ll stand by you in event of an attempt on the democratically elected throne,” and he laughs.

Brunnhilde sinks deeper into her seat and tries to feel the colours of space soak into her skin like the sun might, like she’s lying in the thick fields of Asgard again, because those are the parts of it she misses.  

 

He seems to have a plan and direction in mind and Brunnhilde doesn’t ask, because it doesn’t warrant asking, even if the whole thing feels patently unplanned. Their ship is small enough to be cozy and large enough to offer them enough room to stretch their legs, and she only dents the wall once and that is because he does truly wonderful things with his mouth -- not because of any sort of cabin fever.

She arm-wrestles a Badoon in a dive on Contraxia and swims butt-naked in a waterfall on Ehlsiver’s hot sticky surface. He gets into a fight with twelve mercenaries for old times’ sake and she watches him win and then bails him out of a local jail. They find a planet with a desert and sit in the dirt together, at the end of the ramp of their not-orgy ship, not quite holding hands but knowing they could if they wanted to. She wants to say she can hear him think, it’s so obvious, as he gazes out into the ink of the night with mismatched eyes, brow not quite furrowed. 

She can’t tell how long they’ve been out in the black, maybe because they seem to be avoiding any true deep space with a diligence that she appreciates. Their destinations are crowded metropolises or lush corners of planets that promise  _ breathing _ as a recreational sport. She suggests dropping by Midgard at some point -- maybe surprise Stark with a thunderstorm, because that would be brilliant fun, or bring the Wakandans some of her good liquor, the stuff she’s hid away for ages. Mostly, she thinks it would be funny to subtly suggest to the Avengers that Loki’s on another realm conquering bend; dying a third time undid his previous character growth. 

Thor vetoes all of these, though not without a smile on his face. She doesn’t argue, because it doesn’t warrant arguing, and disparaging Loki’s questionably-good name is something she can do any day of the week. 

At their third stop they find themselves walking through the bustling streets of a yellow-red village. They stop at a stall run by what looks a sprawling family: a young man and his wife acting as the face of it while a bent-over old lady shuffles around wares in the back and three girls of varying ages bicker over the display of their wares. Behind the old grandmother to the left of the table, a little boy weaves through the legs of a middle-aged woman, all wrapped up in some of their own shawls. 

They stop to buy brightly-coloured, embroidered cloth from them, allegedly to ward off the hot hot sun, but she knows Thor suggested it more because of the life infused in the family itself than his need for a veil against the twin suns’ rays. She returns the young woman’s smile and thinks of the tableau: she and her pale husband corralling the sprawl of a family around them and building a life for them all. How much loss do they carry, Brunnhilde wonders. Or do they carry any at all? It’s hard to tell, which suddenly, compulsively frustrates her. 

On impulse, Brunnhilde buys a pair of gold earrings from them too, ones that remind her of the hoops standing out against the woman’s dark neck. She’s not sure that she’ll ever wear them, but she buys them anyway. They walk down the street, and Brunnhilde lets the shawl wrapped around her hair hang fluttering by her shoulders. She swings her arms and hips in unison, feeling filled by something she can’t quite describe but that is lifting her feet in a way she’s not recently familiar with.

“I really like that look on you,” she tells Thor, and because she is feeling particularly cheeky (as though she is ever not cheeky, she is sure he’d remind her) punctuates her statement with a covert hand against his arse. Thor laughs; it’s a delightful sound.

“It covers all my most dashing features.” As though to prove his point, he pulls the threadbare blue cloth over his mouth and nose and Brunnhilde feels a sudden unanticipated clench in her chest, for no reason at all. She ignores it, and says,

“That’s the point, golden boy.”

“There’s not a moment I’m not glad you’re here, Brunn,” he says, and he means it sarcastically but she knows that he would mean it sincerely, too, were the occasion just slightly different, so she slips her fingers away from his backside and into his hand. He lets the scarf drop and looks at her, and the sky is a pleasant pinkish orange that’s so very different from Asgard’s blue skies and their settlement’s yellow sun. Brunnhilde knows the elation is being grounded by a heaviness at the back of her throat, and she wants to say  _ thank you, thank you, thank you _ until her voice goes hoarse but somehow that’s not quite right, nor enough.

She settles for squeezing his big hand in hers and relishing the feel of him squeezing back.

 

Apparently  _ vacation _ means flying aimlessly through the most colourful parts of space and visiting the occasional old friend to bum their cheap liquor. 

Xandar is rebuilt enough that it doesn’t leave her sick to her stomach but different enough that the splinter of discomfort is unavoidable. She hasn’t been in long enough that she might write it off, attribute it to the passage of time, but she knows too much for that to work. She watches the glass towers and manicured courtyards around her with wary eyes and doesn’t realize where Thor is going until they’re in the shipyards and she can recognize the bright colours of the craft in front of them.

The  _ Benatar _ hasn’t changed much, less even than Xandar has. Brunnhilde wagers a guess that its occupants haven’t either, in all the ways that count. She can hear bickering from behind the wing in drawling accents, and the faint notes of unfamiliar music from inside the ship. Sat at a makeshift table just outside the access ramp, Gamora is halfway through sorting out weapons with her long colourful hair bundled at the top of her head when she sees them. Her smile is bright and warm and Brunnhilde likes her as much as she has every other time they’ve seen each other, which have been -- few, in the seven years since.

There have been other things on their minds, she supposes. Lives to rebuild; refugees to re-anchor. Problems to work through. Brunnhilde is old enough that it does not feel like very long, all things considered, to work through anything. Seven years -- barely the blink of an eye.

She returns the strong clasp of the shoulder and then loosens her torso, steps in for a hug. It’s nice, to have friends like this. 

More importantly, Gamora’s smile is carrying something grounding in it when she asks, “What are you guys doing here?” and Brunnhilde realizes that it’s a quality normal enough to her that she does not covet it any longer. As the rest of their mismatched group of old friends spills out of the ship to dog-pile them  _ hello _ , she catches Thor’s eye, his gentle smile holding an undercurrent of  _ something _ underneath, and she wonders how spontaneous this trip really was.

He’s always been more clever than she gives him credit for, the smug bastard. 

“Just in the neighborhood,” Thor replies, as Nebula rolls her eyes from the top of the gangway and Quill’s muffled shout is heard from somewhere in the belly of the ship --  _ Who’s out there, honey? _ like they’re paying some kind of house call -- followed by the bright and happy and unexpected noises of a small child.

“Friends!” Gamora shouts back, and then, “it’s been way too long -- we’re so happy to see you.” 

It’s genuine and frank in a way she knows is unique to the Guardians, lightened by the bustling life and energy in the yard behind them. Brunnhilde is almost surprised: Gamora looks all but the same, save maybe a new piercing in her ear. She looks back over in time to catch the spark of mischief in Thor’s eye as he glances at a point above her shoulder.

“An honour to be considered as such,” he says, like Quill hadn’t told them after everything (near  _ ten years ago _ ) that they had them on speed dial in case the universe went to hell in a handbasket yet again, but mostly because it was a quick and easy way to get them to come over and get sloshed. Then he raises his voice and eyes the open ramp and continues, “you look radiant as always, Gamora!”

Brunnhilde snorts; Gamora smacks Thor’s arm serenely just as Quill appears, tow-headed and wearing a threadbare t-shirt over his pants and boots that’s covered in mismatched handprints of engine grease. Compared to Gamora he’s a mess, but as he nears her side Brunnhilde can’t help notice how easily he fits into the space beside her, like it comes naturally to him. 

She’s turned back into a sentimental fool, as she’d said. To make up for it, she gently punches Groot in the arm and asks him what he’s been up to lately as Quill grins at the sight of them, faster and easier than near everyone else. 

“What’d I miss?” asks Quill, at the lingering laughter among them, and Brunnhilde looks back at him, sees him properly this time. She’s startled the same way she was with Gamora, but for different reasons -- at the grey at his temples and the lines down his cheeks far more obvious than Thor’s. There is a small curly-haired child bouncing at his heels, alternating between offering Brunnhilde toothless smiles and hiding behind her father’s legs. Thor seems unconcerned by this development, but Brunnhilde does not remember any small children the last time they saw each other -- when she let Drax beat her at arm wrestling, when Gamora dazzled them all with her knife throwing skills whilst perched atop Quill’s shoulders, when Thor got drunk enough that the morning after which was really the night of, once they were back on their own ship, he kissed Brunnhilde for the first time.

“The god of thunder was flirting shamelessly with your wife,” says Gamora, pausing to press a kiss to Quill’s cheek before she makes her way back up the ramp. She winks down at their little girl with a practiced ease and the baby giggles, peaks her head out from behind her father’s leg. 

“Well I’m better looking, so that’s fine,” says Quill, half to the gathered assemblage and half to Brunnhilde and half to Thor himself, before he lets Thor pull him into a bear hug filled with easy laughter.

A vibrancy -- an ease of life.

She can taste it on her tongue, which is an odd thought to have.

“Come on inside,” says Gamora, to the two of them; Brunnhilde lets herself be pulled along by the arm Drax has thrown around her shoulders, lets herself indulge Mantis’s questions about their lives these past years. 

She catches Thor’s eye, the real one, and breathes in deeply. 

“We’ll bust out Pete’s best engine juice for you,” Rocket offers, and Quill says, “That was for a special occasion, asshole,” as he picks the wide-eyed baby up from the floor with an ease that Brunnhilde for some reason did not think was possible. 

The baby’s curly purple head had barely come up to the top of Quill’s knee and yet she reaches out with a purposefulness that Brunnhilde has seen in formidable warriors. She supposes it runs in the family, along with the unhindered giggly-ness as she focuses all her attention on Brunnhilde like she’s someone who knows the first thing about handling babies. Chubby green fingers stretch to touch her braids with a delighted, “Hi, hi!”, but Brunnhilde doesn’t have the time to think about how she isn’t tensing before Thor asks, “And what is this fine young lady’s name?” like he’s a doting uncle or some bull like that, and the little girl’s attention is successfully diverted. 

There’s some response to which she knows attention should be paid -- to the sprawl of a family, maybe, or the sight of something that has been so obviously painstakingly rebuilt to the point that its previous brokenness is near forgotten -- but instead, Brunnhilde glances back at the rebuilt Xandar once more and follows the lot of them up the ramp, thinking for some unexplainable reason about the impossibility of entertaining loss.

 

That night, she sits half undressed on the  _ Benatar’s  _ wing, taking alternate pulls of a bottle she must have unearthed at some point during the night and contemplating her existence. 

The night air is cool against the skin of her chest where it is devoid of everything but a thin wrapping around her breasts, and even drunk she revels at the feel of the breeze through her loose hair. She can’t remember how long it’s been since she started revelling in breezes again. A part of her, the ever increasing part, wants to say that that’s mostly irrelevant, at this point.

“You know, I thought I might find you here,” says Thor’s voice. She’s not surprised at all -- he’s a regular fixture in this living of hers, after all. 

Odd, how that happened. Odd, how she’s perfectly at ease with it, now.

“I’ve always been a predictable arse, love.”

“Oh, I’ve known that for quite some time, Brunn,” and his eyes are twinkling. Bastard. A word she thinks up mostly because he’s not let himself get quite as drunk as she, even though she can hold hers better.

“C’mon -- c’mere. Sit with me.”

“All the way up there?”

“I’ll haul you up by the pits, your highness, don’t think I won’t. I’m wanna -- gonna. We’re gonna talk.”

There’s a soft creak of metal beside her, harmonizing with his equally soft chuckle, as he pulls himself up, limbs loose with the alcohol but not sloppy. Brunnhilde breathes in, and breathes out, and looks at the twinkling lights of Xandar past the edge of the shipyard. From inside the ship there’s music playing again, something Midgardian that she couldn’t name even if she wanted to -- it’s a predictable fixture around here, she’s learned. Solid and dependable.

She thinks again, how easily she let herself allow solid and dependable goodness into her life. Barely days after, in the grand scheme of things, it was there, just there, and she didn’t ever question it.

She had to leave him, had to pretend she didn’t leave him to a massacre like what she’d known before, and yet she’d never once thought of loss.

It was unthinkable.

A coping mechanism, maybe, she thinks now, not nearly as bitter as she thought she’d be. Her own broken reactivism, because loss just became impossible, after she left Sakaar.

Stupid, of course. What a stupid way to live.

“Anything in particular we’re going to talk about?” he asks, and she lets her head fall back to look at him properly. Norns, he’s beautiful. But she knew that. That’s not nearly the drunken revelation it could be.

“Yeah -- yeah. Haven’t got this drunk in a  _ while _ .” She drags out  _ while _ , because it deserves it.

“It’s very charming,” he says, smile going a bit silly. Of course it does -- of course. 

Earlier, aboard the ship and only two drinks in, she’d been laughing at Rocket’s crass jokes and allowing three-year-old Meredith to climb up her shoulders to regale the company with her latest feats of imagination. A Rajak princess was being held captive by the lords of the rainbow nebula and only Sally the doll could rescue her, but not before finding a coveted magic music box in the far reaches of outer space, its powers unique and legendary. Sally the doll was going to save  _ lives _ , Brunnhilde remembers now -- perhaps the only thing she can remember properly of that early in the evening, and it’s stuck itself somewhere in her chest.

The thought of  _ life _ , along with it the lack of tension in her chest at the frankness of a child’s unfiltered trust in her to be safe and secure. The child of former criminals, maybe, but still -- the press of Meredith’s small fingers clutching at Brunnhilde’s armored shoulders keeps lingering. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Quill’s probably been stowing this for decades, given how strong it is. Or maybe it’s Rocket’s, because he’s just crazy.

That sounds right to her, anyway. Thor would agree with her, even if she was spouting nonsense, because he loves her, doesn’t he. The big fool.

And there’s the thing, she thinks -- there’s the  _ thing _ . That she’s allowed herself so swiftly to be something beloved, and something beloved by  _ goodness _ \-- she’s surprised herself by it, quite suddenly.

She looks over and Thor’s looking at her, gentle and kind, and she’s filled with that feeling again. That --  _ feeling _ . The one that was lifting her feet.

“Funny,” she says, turning back and speaking to the shipyard, warming bottle held loosely in her fingertips. “I’ve lived a  _ life _ . I’ve lived -- a whole  _ life _ , Thor.”

She breathes, deeply. He doesn’t say anything, simply watches her with that look on his face, and she loves him a bit for it. 

“An’ I only just -- I only just feel like I’ve got a life in front of me, to live,” she finishes. She turns back, swaying before his hand steadies her at the small of her back, and realizes her eyes are wet when she breathes in and frowns a little. “That make sense?”

He looks at her for a moment, and she remembers how much younger than her he is. And how it doesn’t really matter, at all.

“Total sense, Brunn.”

“It’s -- i’ss a good feeling. Y’know?”

“I know.” Quiet, gentle, sincere -- not at all indulgent.

And then, 

“I’m glad you agreed to come,” Thor says, quietly, meant for her alone. That she loves him has never been a discomfort, or a thing to be questioned or feared. Many other things, perhaps -- but never that. She swallows, nods.

“Yeah.”

He presses his forehead against hers, the lights of a rebuilt world twinkling on the horizon.

 

Loki’s sprawled out on Thor’s living room sofa when they arrive home, which she supposes is the new equivalent of claiming the throne as his own.

“Bad news, brother,” he says, as a declaration upon their entrance. “I am the new democratically elected ruler of this settlement.”

“Hullo, Loki,” says Thor, removing his weapons at the door and hanging them carefully on the hooks lining the wall. “Good to see you again.”

“Kings of places can’t just up and leave on whims, you know,” Loki informs them.

“Was it a whim? I thought I’d planned the whole thing out. And I told Korg and about ten others.”

Brunnhilde smirks; she knew he’d planned it, the clever arse. And of course, there’s always something delightful about Loki’s sour expressions.

“You mean  _ I _ was the only person in the dark?”

“Don’t take it personally, brother.” And he heads to the other end of their quarters to page Korg that they’re home.

“I  _ was _ elected, you know!” Loki calls, across the place. Brunnhilde flops down in his now-abandoned seat and puts her boots up on the table.

“If it makes you feel better,” she says, “I wouldn’t vote for you.”

From the other room, Thor laughs; it’s a delightful sound. Loki crosses his arms.

“It does not,” he says.

“It makes me feel better!” calls her lover, the King, a boy-turned-man who she can’t imagine ever not being there. His voice is bright and happy from the other room.

She thinks again of how much time they have left.

How much  _ life _ they have left. 

“I know,” she says, and joins in on the laughter.

 

**Author's Note:**

> baby meredith was originally featured in "you and me and this joy of ours" & im only saying this bc in pretty much 99% of scenarios i cant imagine peter and gamora having kids so i wrote like 20k of the Very Specific One in which they do
> 
> u are welcome to give it a gander if u want to!


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